Woman's teeth broken in alleged assault at Whistler hotel

A woman was left battered and bruised after allegedly being assaulted by a Coquitlam man at a village hotel this week.

On the morning of Dec. 6, police were dispatched to the Northlands Boulevard hotel where, according to information provided, the woman was locked out of a bedroom in her underwear, visibly upset and beaten up.

Police attended the room, where a hotel employee said she could hear “a female screaming for help within the room.”

Officers knocked on the door and heard a female voice inside, although the door went unanswered. The hotel employee then granted officers access to the room where they found the woman “shaken up and crying, screaming for help," police said.

The woman claimed the suspect “punched her in the face, choked her several times and threatened to kill her if she screamed louder or phoned the police,” Staff Sgt. Steve LeClair said. She suffered several broken teeth as a result.

The 23-year-old suspect was eventually located in the hotel hallway with visible marks on his face. He was arrested for assault and held in custody.

Police take several impaired drivers off the road in past week

Local police stayed busy on the roads last week, dealing with several impaired drivers.

On Dec. 3, an officer stopped a driver she had noticed only 15 minutes prior “stumbling” on Village Gate Boulevard. The 38-year-old Whistler man told RCMP he was “going to get some pizza” when the officer noticed a strong odour of liquor on his breath.

His vehicle was impounded and license suspended after failing a roadside-screening test.

The next day BC Ambulance requested Pemberton RCMP attend the scene of an accident on Portage Road. A 2015 Chevrolet Colorado was found on its roof after it appeared the driver hit a patch of ice and rolled the vehicle into a ditch. He was not injured.

The 19-year-old Mount Currie resident failed a screening test as well as two breathalyzer tests administered back at the RCMP detachment.

Also on Dec. 4, a driver from New Hampshire was stopped at the corner of Cypress Place and Highway 99 in Whistler where he told police he was coming from a nightclub and had “drank five beers throughout the evening.” The 26-year-old subsequently failed a roadside-screening test twice and was arrested for impaired driving.

On Dec. 5, A witness called police to report the driver of a blue truck veering into oncoming traffic and driving erratically.

Officers tracked down the vehicle exiting Portage Road onto Highway 99 where it was stopped. Police noticed an odour of liquor on the driver’s breath, a 64-year-old Mount Currie woman who initially denied consuming alcohol. She failed two roadside-screening tests and was arrested.

The trend continued the next day when police stopped a vehicle in the Marketplace parking lot before 3 a.m. The driver exhibited signs of intoxication and failed two screening tests. The 29-year-old North Vancouver woman was issued a 90-day roadside prohibition and had her vehicle impounded.

With the holiday season in full swing, LeClair said drivers can expect local police out on the roads in full force.

“If you’re driving in the Whistler-Pemberton area, you can expect to be travelling through sobriety checkstops,” he said. “Police take a zero-tolerance policy to drinking and driving.”

'Fun’ snowball fight leads to blows in front of conference centre

Well that escalated quickly.

A snowball fight got serious in the early hours of Dec. 6 when a large group exiting the Whistler Conference Centre were allegedly attacked after an errant snowball hit the wrong person.

Witnesses reported seeing two males throwing snowball at passersby when one hit a member of another group.“The fun snowball fight turned into an actual fight and both snowball throwers alleged that someone from the group of about 15 people sucker-punched them,” said LeClair.

One of the snowball thrower’s suffered a minor cut to his face while the other lost a front tooth in the snowy throwdown.

Although the group scattered before police arrived, officers were able to track down a few members of the group, however, there was insufficient evidence to identify a suspect, said LeClair.

Hit-and-run results in drunk driving charges

A 45-year-old Whistler woman faces a handful of charges after failing to remain at the scene of an accident when she allegedly rear-ended another vehicle.

On Dec. 3, a witness called police to say that a silver vehicle had struck her car on Highway 99 at Cheakamus Lake Road before the driver fled the scene. The witness was able to snap a photo of the driver before she took off, helping police locate the woman parked nearby.

The driver was arrested for impaired driving as well as for failing to remain at the scene of the collision and was taken to the police detachment, where she refused to provide a breath sample.

Further checks revealed the woman was on condition not to consume alcohol in relation to a previous charge in Squamish.

Suspect makes off with $5,500 coat at local nightclub

A resort visitor is out a leather jacket after an apparent scheme to lift it from the coat check at a village nightclub.

On Dec. 3, a man called police to say his black leather jacket valued at $5,500 had been stolen the previous evening. He said he felt a hand reach into his back pants pocket at some point in the night, however, when he turned around, “no one was there,” said LeClair. It appears the suspect grabbed the man's coat check ticket, as a check of surveillance footage showed a female suspect accompanied by an unknown man leaving with the jacket.